40 Year Itch: Sing A Song Of Long Ago

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RCA record execs were probably pretty nervous. In 1972 Harry Nilsson and producer Richard Perry made a platinum album called Nilsson Schmilsson, a gold album called Son of Schmilsson, and two gold singles , Melody Maker's record of the year and future Grammy winner "Without You" and "Coconut".
   But now their cash cow was off in London recording a collection of pop standards with Gordon Jenkins. For that reason perhaps, RCA saw fit to re-release 1970's all but ignored Nilsson Sings Newman.



It's an absolutely delightful, absolutely short ( with running time of just over 25 minutes) collection of intimately performed pop tunes showcasing Newman's more sentimental, less sarcastic side ( with perhaps the exception of "Yellow Man") and Nilsson's warm, perfect voice.


 
Record exec fears were well-founded.While A Little Touch of Schmilsson In The Night  remains a favorite to some, it undermined Nilsson's pop music cache and was met with critical slings and arrows. The Village Voice's Robert Christgau wrote "I wouldn't give my extra copy to my mother".

#48 Honeybus - Fresher Than The Sweetness in Water (1970)

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With a sound that merges the best of Brinsley Schwarz and Emitt Rhodes, the inventive UK band Honeybus didn't release Story until after they had broken up in 1970. Naturally the album failed to chart, but if 1001Songs has anything to say about it, Story will get a second life.
 Honeybus is best known for a 1968 baroque pop single called " I Can't Let Maggie Go", one of the all-time faves of XTC's Andy Partridge.

#35 Ananda Shankar "Jumpin' Jack Flash" 1970

The idea of a sitar soaked cover of the Rolling Stones "Jumpin' Jack Flash" probably sounds like it would be, at best, a curiosity. Something the more cynical of us could have predicted after George Harrison's "Norwegian Wood" noodlings became the talk of Rubber Soul.
But then you listen to this and HOLY CRAP!...as the critics say.

Ananda Shankar--nephew of the more famous Ravi Shankar--visited San Francisco in 1968 and jammed with Jimi Hendrix. That eye--and ear--opening experience led to experimentations with more instruments: the moog synthesizer, guitar, bass and drums. For his self titled 1970 album--now a cult classic-- Ananda covered "Jumpin Jack Flash" as well as The Doors' "Light My Fire". The entire album is a great groovy mood enhancing gem.

Shankar returned to India in the mid-70's and recorded more classics as well as soundtracks. According to Alan James's liner notes for a much later album, Ananda used to say: "My dream is to break barriers, any kind of barrier - through music, love, affection and compassion. I have this dream of musicians from all over the world playing for an audience all over the world. When we are all here we are one, and when we go out I am sure we will all be one."

#30 Duster Bennett "I Chose To Sing The Blues" 1970

Could the entire pub rock scene (that eventually gave us Elvis Costello, Graham Parker and the many incarnations of Nick Lowe) have all come from a single Welsh man who could play harmonica, guitar and drums at the same time? Probably not. But Duster Bennett could do all three and write remarkably catchy tunes like this one from his 1970 album 12 Db's.

                           Duster Bennett, the original one man band


Bennett was a bluesman at first. He recorded his first solo album with members of Fleetwood Mac and toured the US in 1970 with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Had he not been a blues singer, who knows? As he suggests in this song, he could have been a gambler, a lover, doctor or maybe even president.

         Peter Green, Duster Bennett, B.B. King

Instead he chose to sing the blues. In 1975 Jimmy Page signed Bennett to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label. On a March night in 1976, after performing with Memphis Slim, Bennett apparently fell asleep at the wheel of his van and dies in a collision with a truck. He was 29.

In 2007, Sony released the Complete Blue Horizon Sessions. Now, like so many artists before him, his legacy is there--ready to be discovered-- by future generations.

6 Songs with Alan White #4 "My Sweet Lord" 1970

Though it's only been 40 years, there's a lot of confusion about who played what instrument on what track of George Harrison's epic triple album ALL THINGS MUST PASS. The album lists 5 drummers/percussionists for instance... and it's quite the all-star cast: Ringo Starr, Ginger Baker, Phil Collins, Jim Gordon and Alan White. Alan says he played on the title track, the hit "My Sweet Lord, "Isn't It a Pity" and "Wah Wah" (among others) but he understands the confusion,

ALAN: About twenty people turned up every day, and we decided who was going to play what, and which song and what you do and if you weren't needed, you weren't needed.

George would play the songs and we'd all get into it. And then we'd all organize it a bit more and a bit more until we finally had a take.

From a drummer's point of view Harrison's #1 hit ( and the first #1 hit by any ex-Beatle), "My Sweet Lord", doesn't offer much to talk about. It's a pretty basic beat but you don't hear the drums until 1:45 into the song.

ALAN: The drums actually come in earlier than that and on the record they faded them in very slowly. It actually worked but it was all (producer)Phil Spector's idea at that time.

Next: Siberian Khatru by Yes

6 Songs with Alan White #2 "Instant Karma!" 1970

John Lennon enlisted George Harrison, Billy Preston, Klaus Voorman and future Yes drummer Alan White on "Instant Karma!". Lennon claims he "wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch, and we're putting it out for dinner."

1001Songs asked Alan about those memorable "fall down the stairs" drum fills. Alan explained he was playing a lot of prog rock at the time and experimenting with time signatures.


I was going through a phase in my life when I thought "Wouldn't it be interesting if a drummer is playing a certain groove and when you get to a drum fill you take it out of that meter into another meter and then come back into the song again?"
So that was what that was all about. And when I first tried it in the studio John said "What was that?" and I said "I had this idea to take it out--"
He said "It was fantastic!" He said "Whatever you're doing, just keep doing it!"

TOMORROW: IMAGINE